1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to object location and tracking systems, and more specifically, to an object location and tracking system adapted for a local area network and further providing object based communications with and control of physical devices within the environment.
2. Description of the Related Art
Object location and tracking systems are well known to the art. A number of systems have been developed using various techniques, such as infrared, radio frequency, and ultrasonic, for continuously tracking the positions of personnel and objects within a facility.
Infrared techniques have proven especially well-suited to this task. In one particular system, the individuals or objects to be tracked are furnished with infrared transmitters known as "TAGs" containing a unique identification code periodically transmitted to receivers located throughout a facility. Such a system is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,275,385 to White, which is hereby incorporated by reference. A number of other patents have offered refinements to the techniques in the White patent, such as that disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,119,104 to Heller, issued Jun. 2, 1992, and entitled "Location System Adapted for Use in Multipath Environments", which is hereby incorporated by reference.
But in today's networked environment, such infrared object location and tracking systems can be unwieldy to implement. The microprocessor world has moved steadily and continuously towards network environments, but the various tracking systems previously presented have not adequately addressed the need to smoothly integrate object location and tracking hardware into modern systems. Therefore, it would be greatly desirable to logically and elegantly integrate object location and tracking system hardware into microcomputer network based environments.
Further, while use of infrared TAGs in an object location and tracking system can provide basic functionality in a real-world environment, a number of other elements would be greatly desirable to enhance such systems. Because a TAG can be worn by someone other than its true owner, and because TAGs provide for area identification rather than physical contact identification, it is thus desirable to provide for a more physical manifestation of actual presence.
Further, TAGs only address the detection aspect of an object location and tracking system. It would be greatly desirable to also provide seamlessly integrated facilities for responding to such detection, whether indicated by a TAG or by other presence detection methods.
Finally, in a hardware system implementing all of the above, any reduction in device cost would be greatly desirable.